Event Description: In preparation for International Women’s Day (March 8th), Friendship with Cambodia will show a 40 minute film that highlights segments of the four hour PBS documentary “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” based on the book by journalists Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn. Then we will show a 7 minute film about the results of Friendship with Cambodia’s program to sponsoring girls in school. Fair-trade crafts from projects that empower women will be for sale.

Our next trip to Cambodia departs December 30, 2013 – Come with us to learn about Cambodia, visit our projects, and enjoy this beautiful culture!

CSWS associate director Gabriela Martínez will discuss her work-in-progress about Guatemala, and the significance of the Historical Archives of the National Police of Guatemala (AHPN). She will address the work of remarkable women who are engaged in bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Several newly opened cases revisit the internal war that engulfed Guatemala from 1960 to 1996, when a peace accord was signed.

Gabriela Martínez is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication.

CSWS Film Series: The Purity Myth

The Purity Myth: The Virginity Movement’s War Against Women

A panel of noted scholars and activists will discuss “The War on Women” in a public forum following a screening of The Purity Myth. In this video adaptation of her bestselling book, pioneering feminist blogger Jessica Valenti trains her sights on “the virginity movement” — an unholy alliance of evangelical Christians, right-wing politicians, and conservative policy intellectuals who have been exploiting irrational fears about women’s sexuality to roll back women’s rights. From dad-and-daughter “purity balls,” taxpayer-funded abstinence-only curricula, and political attacks on Planned Parenthood, to recent attempts by legislators to de-fund women’s reproductive health care and narrow the legal definition of rape, Valenti identifies a single, unifying assumption: the myth that the worth of a woman depends on what she does — or does not do — sexually. In the end, Valenti argues that the health and well-being of women are too important to be left to ideologues bent on vilifying feminism and undermining women’s autonomy.

This public event marks the first of four screenings of feminist documentaries that will take place from October 2012 to May 2013. Carol Stabile, UO professor and director of the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) says, “Like many women around the country, we’ve watched and listened to the recent public debates and legislative attempts to roll back fundamental gains in women’s reproductive rights and access to health care.”

• the silencing of Michigan State Rep. Lisa Brown for using the “V-word” while debating an anti-abortion bill.

“Over the past year, we have seen a sustained attack on issues of central concern to women, with very few women having the opportunity to weigh in on these issues in the public arena,” said Stabile, who is the author of articles including “Shooting the Mother: Fetal Photography and the Politics of Disappearance,” and several books on media history, gender, and race.

Taking as its focus the role that women’s bodies have played in these national debates, and the gender gap in media coverage, this public event gathers together experts on media politics, women’s sexuality and health, and reproductive justice to discuss how both traditional broadcast outlets and social media have framed — and changed — this conversation.

Filmmaker Jessica Valenti was named one of the top 100 Inspiring Women in the World by The Guardian and is the author of several books about “third wave feminism” and the young women’s rights movement. She is a regular contributor to The Nation and a sought-after speaker.

Sponsored by the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society with the Fembot Project.